What kind of citation is necessary for publisher's summaries? BBC Books has released the descriptions for the first three Eleventh Doctor novels, also confirming that it's Apollo 23 and not Apollo 13, but I've only found the summaries on fandom news sites rather than there being a BBC site page for them. Can they be added now or do we have to wait for the descriptions to appear on Amazon or the like? -- Noneofyourbusiness 15:45, February 5, 2010 (UTC)
- None in theory as it's what is written on the back of the book, generally speaking someone has the book in front of them to double check that the publisher's summary is indeed that.
- In this specific case, don't use fan sites (if these fan sites have sources follow the sources back to an official site). If no official site exists err on the side of caution and wait until the BBC or something like Amazon has a description listed. --Tangerineduel 16:37, February 5, 2010 (UTC)
For someone who has done quite a lot of book coverage articles, many of which are no longer in print, I would argue that rather than see publishers summaries as an advert, they are an appetiser. Ok, they sometimes big-up their content, but more often than not they offer a concise summary of the contents and breadth of the titles coverage. Whether a book lives up to that expectation or not should be addressed elsewhere on the page. Is it not preferable to use source material where available and not resort to a judgemental summation alone? If the publishers summary is an incentive designed to draw in the reader, is that necessarily a bad thing? I would argue its not.
PS I would also argue that the same, maybe moreso, applies to the cover design, and I find it hard to believe you would support cataloguing a book without the cover's inclusion :) The Librarian 22:24, February 5, 2010 (UTC)